Zombie Queen
by Uta Burke
Summary: The Dixon brothers encounter a mysterious lady in the woods of Georgia. Daryl recognizes her as Odysseia, the witch of Harkersville and the girl he was in love with all through high school, but too shy to tell until it was too late. Now he has another chance not only to consummate their love, but to end the Apocalypse…


**Zombie Queen**

Merle and Daryl are out in the woods, looking for shelter. Merle needs to get away from Rick; the two men do not get along and never will.

The brothers reach a clearing and at first they didn't see them, but now the forest is swarming with Walkers. In the midst of the glade towers a figure; she wears a black crown and the remnants of a gown.

When she hears the brothers' footsteps, she turns around, looking through them.

Her face is bruised and blood-streaked, pale as death, yet strangely vibrant. She appears to be alive in a diseased body.

"I know her! We went to school together," Daryl whispers excitedly, then adds under his breath, "Dessa."

"Odysseia, the witch."

Merle and Daryl mumble her name simultaneously, but only Daryl knows her secret nickname. He had loved Dessa from the moment he laid eyes on her, back in high school, but was too shy to tell her until it was too late. She was known as the Witch from Harkersville, and there was probably more truth to it than myth. He himself had witnessed Dessa with herbs and enchantments over the body of a dead raven which had come back to life and flown away.

Now, after all these years, they meet again.

Her brain, which had stayed more active than any of the Walkers', blasts synapses into the dormant cerebrum and her heart alights with fire when she sees Daryl in the shadows of the trees. He stops in front of her, spellbound, as if she was a cobra ready to strike. They slowly dance around each other, not letting the other out of sight, to gauge the next move.

A tear runs down Odysseia's cheek and Daryl understands that she remembers him, and with it all that happened during their last encounter. She conveys that she is aware of it, trapped in this half-dead body that preserved her beauty, but not its purpose.

He whispers her name again. "Dessa." Another tear. She points at his arm, the scar from the attack on that sinister afternoon, when she was beaten and raped, and he had stepped in without concern for his own life.

The scene floods back to him. He had heard screams and laughter coming from behind the school and found Trevor's gang pouncing like wolves over Odysseia's ravished body. Daryl slashed everything in his path with his hunting knife, stabbing blindly until Merle and his friends, who often hung around the schoolyard looking for trouble even though they had dropped out years ago, pulled him away and dragged him off.

Angry sirens blared in the distance.

Daryl looked back at the girl lying in the grass, howling at the sight of her mangled body, trying to break free and taking care of his beloved Dessa, but Merle wouldn't let him.

"Let the cops take care of her. You'll spend the rest of your life in prison if they catch you here!"

"But, she's bleeding! She's gonna die! We can't just leave her here, Merle!"

"There is nothing else you can do for her. You killed her attackers; now you have to think about yourself, you hear me!"

Merle was older and stronger; Daryl couldn't fight him. He cried with rage and grief, knowing he would never see Dessa again. He had never forgotten her, could never look at another woman with the same desire he had felt for her. It was as if she had locked his heart.

Merle dragged him away from the carnage and they were on the run. Shortly after the attack, the Dead began rising. The brothers encountered some of the guys Daryl killed. He never felt guilty about it. Later, they met up with a group outside Atlanta, but when Rick arrived, Merle and him didn't get along. Daryl had to make a decision and that was how they ended up here.

The Walkers notice the intruders and turn in their direction, closing in on him and Merle. With a flicker of her hand, Odysseia, the Queen of the Zombies, stops the whole herd.

Daryl, enchanted, understands the power she has over the Dead. He steps closer as if in a trance, drawn in, reaching out, placing a hand gently on her cheek, tracing her lips, coming closer, much closer, until their lips are a flutter apart. The next slightest move connects them. They press into a kiss, linger, turn hungry and hungrier, ravenous, urgent, on fire.

Around them, one after another, a Walker drops to the ground and stays down.

Daryl is startled for a moment, but quickly falls back into the Zombie Queen's spell. He understands without words that she could not cross over until their love was requited. He grasps for her, driven by long restrained love and desire, not the least bit bothered by her earthy smell and grimy skin, much like his own. She draws him to her bosom. He parts the shreds of her gown and mounts her, pressed against a tree, as his manhood drives deep inside her soppy folds. They mate, howling at the sky, consummating their love. Daryl plants his seed into her womb for naught, but the act releases her spirit, and he kisses her until she dies.

Merle watches from a distance, high up in a tree, fascinated by his younger brother's uninhibited mating with the Zombie Queen who was in charge of every Walker on earth, for she was the harbinger of the virus through a spell born of revenge.

The Walkers, who watch their Queen mate and die with unseeing eyes, combust and fall to the ground. But not all. Some, restored to a state close to what they had been when the apocalypse struck and depending on the state of their decay, wander around in a daze, cured and back among the living.

Merle jumps down from the tree, blade at the ready, not fully trusting the events, but with a victorious smile hinting at the corners of his mouth.

"Daryl, ya old devil! Ya did it! Ya turned it around. And yer log jamming ain't nothing to sneer at, either. Proud of ya, lil brother. Ya saved the world!"

Daryl stands with Dessa's lifeless body in his arms, tears falling on her stilled chest, as he kisses her for the last time. Merle finally preys him away, again, and promises to help him bury her.

They do not return to Rick's group. There is no need.


End file.
